While differing in their measurements of office vacancy rates, major brokerage firms in Westchester County agree the county”™s office market at midyear is improving ”“ slightly.
Newmark Knight Frank reported the county”™s office availability rate was flat at 23.8 percent in the second quarter, compared to 23.7 percent in the first quarter of this year and 24 percent a year ago.
Cushman & Wakefield reported the countywide office vacancy rate for class-A buildings fell to 18.7 percent in the second quarter, down from 19.2 percent in the first quarter and 21.4 percent in the second quarter of 2010.
CB Richard Ellis reported the county”™s overall second-quarter availability rate at 19 percent, slightly higher than the 18.4 percent rate of the first quarter, but a 1 percent decrease from a year ago.
“The number of deals signed in Westchester this quarter was just slightly more than last quarter, but the total square footage leased was nearly double that of last quarter,” said John Goodkind, managing principal of Newmark Knight Frank in Greenwich, Conn. Goodkind said the White Plains central business district saw nearly 300,000 square feet of leasing activity from April through June, representing 36.2 percent of all transactions closed in Westchester in the quarter. “This is encouraging as we enter the second half of the year,” he said.
Goodkind, though, expects the Westchester market will be “status quo” through the rest of this year, with slow, steady improvement but few major lease transactions.
While noting the county”™s office sector is in better shape than most parts of the country, he blamed the continued slow pace of leasing activity to “the general uncertainty and instability on a national and international level.”
Robert Caruso, senior managing director at CB Richard Ellis in Stamford, Conn., said the Westchester office market has been aided by repositionings, particularly at 1 Gannett Drive, the current home of the Journal News, which is in the approval process in Harrison for conversion to a health and sports complex, and at 101 Executive Blvd. in Yonkers, which will undergo an extensive renovation and has been taken off the market as an office building with available space.
Though the county did not see many large lease deals in the second quarter, Caruso said that Histogenetics, an Ossining-based biotech company, could close on its pending purchase of the vacant 118,000-square-foot office building at 104 Corporate Park Drive in Harrison in the third quarter.
Caruso said a large amount of subleased space has come on the market, including space currently occupied by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., which plans to relocate its headquarters operations in White Plains to Stamford.
The downtown White Plains market continues to perform well, he said, with the only large block of space, approximately 70,000 square feet, available at 7 Renaissance Square.
CB Richard Ellis reported an average asking rent in downtown White Plains of  $26.47 per square foot at the end of the second quarter, down slightly from $26.76 per square foot at the end of the first quarter, but slightly above the $26.40 average asking rent a year ago.
“I think we are sort of bouncing along the bottom here,” said Caruso. “If we get some larger transactions, and I think we need those in order to improve, hopefully we will see the beginning of that (market turnaround) in the third quarter.”
James Fagan, senior managing director and head of Cushman & Wakefield”™s Fairfield and Westchester region, said he expects some large lease transactions in the second half of this year, though he predicted market conditions will remain uneven for the remainder of 2011.
“We seem to be turning the corner in the road to economic recovery in Westchester County,” Fagan said. “The pipeline of tenants in the market that will be executing leases in the second half of this year hasn”™t been this healthy for three years. Despite this, there will be some twists and turns along the way. We believe that we have survived the worst part of the cycle and that the market will improve over the next two years.”
Law firm expands presence in Hawthorne
Traub Lieberman Straus & Shrewsberry L.L.P. has signed a long-term lease extension and expansion at 7 Skyline Drive in Mack-Cali Realty Corp.”™s Mid-Westchester Executive Park in Hawthorne.
Howard Greenberg, president of White Plains-based Howard Properties Ltd., represented the law firm in the deal that expands Traub Lieberman”™s leased space from 5,876 square feet to 28,000 square feet. No lease terms were reported.
The law firm, which specializes in insurance matters, is expected to occupy its expanded space this fall, Greenberg said.
Founded in 1996, Traub Lieberman also has offices in Red Bank, N.J., St. Petersburg, Fla., and Chicago, Il.
